Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra
Biography
The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) ranks among the most distinguished Czech orchestras of the present day. Since the 2022–2023 season, the post of music director has been held by Petr Popelka, while Robert Jindra has been its chief guest conductor.
SOČR has been regularly invited to perform at major Czech festivals (Prague Spring, Dvořák Prague, Smetana Litomyšl, etc.), and at venues in Europe and Japan. It has worked with artists of such renown as the conductors Tomáš Netopil, Jakub Hrůša and Cornelius Meister, the pianists Krystian Zimerman, Lukáš Vondráček and Ivo Kahánek, the cellists Gautier Capuçon and Steven Isserlis, the violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Josef Špaček, the singers Renée Fleming, Elīna Garanča, Jonas Kaufmann and Adam Plachetka, the jazz musician Avishai Cohen, and many others. In the 2023–2024 season, it will welcome a number of stellar guests, including the violinists Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff and María Dueñas. By a rendition of Act 2, the orchestra will round off the unique project of concert performances of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, with Michael Weinius and Elisabeth Teige in the title roles.
SOČR has frequently commissioned and premiered pieces by leading contemporary Czech composers. Its discography is extensive indeed, including an album featuring Viktor Kalabis’s music, made for Hyperion (Gramophone Editor’s Choice), and the acclaimed CD Mystery of Time, containing Miloslav Kabeláč works (Czech Anděl prize), supplemented by the set of the complete Kabeláč symphonies, released in 2016 on Supraphon.